In his recent commentary published by the German Rubikon magazine, War Prevention Initiative Executive Director Patrick Hiller argues that Germany and other European nations need to behave independently at the threshold of war, be courageous and assume a moral leadership beyond Iran, embracing global stability and security. There must be no “coalition of the willing” but the designation of the US as a pariah when it comes to international peace and international stability. You can read the German commentary here:
Provoking World War III with Iran and a U.S. history of provocation
by J.P. Linstroth 1220 words
In the history of the United States and its history of interventionism, the recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman seem to be foreboding and ominous signs of what may come—an inevitable war with the Islamic Republic of Iran? To many who are watching the region closely, it is still unclear if Iran is behind such attacks. Moreover, and, thankfully, President Donald J. Trump backed away from bombing Iran after the Iranians allegedly and recently shot down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz.
Even so, the bellicose rhetoric between President Trump (threatening Iran’s “obliteration”) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (calling Trump “mentally retarded”) have continued. Watching from the sidelines, everyone hopes diplomacy will prevail.
Let us examine U.S. interventionism past more closely. I know of four clear international instances where the United States intervened under dubious circumstances, initiating war.
The first happened just before the beginning of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). President James K. Polk sent American troops to the Rio Grande River under the command of Zachary Taylor. The Mexicans had believed that the border had been at the Nueces River, not the Rio Grande, the Nueces being significantly north of the Rio Grande. This move was provocative and incited Mexican forces to attack the U.S. Army at its fortifications on the Rio Grande in 1846. As the attacks on U.S. soldiers were reported by Taylor to Polk, the U.S. Congress promptly declared war on Mexico.
Yet, in understanding these incidents, we have to likewise understand the motivations of the historical actors. Polk strongly believed in the Manifest Destiny of the United States to conquer the territories west of the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Indeed, Polk initially sent U.S. Congressman John Slidell as U.S. envoy to Mexico to negotiate buying the territories of California and New Mexico from Mexico for about $30 million. (The California and New Mexico territories included present-day California and New Mexico plus Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Colorado.) But Mexican legislators balked at the offer and Mexican newspapers printed the offer as an insult to Mexican pride. The rejected buy simply became war of territorial conquest.
At the end of the 19th century was the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the United States made its debut as an imperialistic world power, seeking its own colonies despite rejecting empire with the American Revolution. Congress declared war on Spain after the U.S.S. Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor. With no evidence, the U.S. blamed Spain and the war was on—not just for Cuba, but for other Spanish colonies, and the U.S. thus acquired Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico.
However, in all likelihood, the ship exploded because of an accident, possibly, a spark from the furnace setting off munitions nearby. Or, a mine in Havana Harbor planted by Cuban rebels detonated the hull of the vessel. In total, 261 sailors lost their lives from the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine. Yet, the causes of the war had more to do with the sensationalism of newspapers at the time owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, called “Yellow Journalism”—what we call today, “fake news.” Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers were publishing stories about Spanish atrocities in Cuba. Moreover, there was the supposed “de Lôme letter” allegedly a critical letter of President William McKinley, written by the Spanish Foreign Minister Enrique Dupuy de Lôme. All of these events “justified” war with Spain.
There was also the “Gulf of Tonkin incident” which began and escalated the Vietnam War under President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. The incident was allegedly a series of attacks by Northern Vietnamese naval torpedo vessels on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, especially involving a destroyer, the U.S.S. Maddox. These skirmishes were said to have occurred on August 2 and August 4, 1964, with the second clash now believed to be entirely imaginary. The falsity of the Gulf of Tonkin incidents was allegedly substantiated by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the former Vietnam People’s Army General Võ Nguyên Giáp. The Gulf of Tonkin skirmishes with the U.S. Navy and the Northern Vietnamese Navy led to the U.S. Congress passing the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.” It gave President Johnson: “…all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”
And lastly, there is the Iraq War (2003-2011). The United States invaded Iraq on the false pretext that Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, was actively developing a program for obtaining alleged WMDs. The United Nations Security Council had earlier passed two resolutions (678 and 687) which allowed the United States to force Iraq into complying with its international agreements, concerning biochemical and nuclear disarmament; both the UN head of inspections and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iraq had no more weapons of mass destruction, yet the U.S. invaded. What is more, the intelligence community tried linking the Hussein government with Al-Qaeda, patently false. As a result of the George W. Bush Administration’s War in Iraq, there were nearly 4,500 U.S. soldier deaths and almost 32,000 U.S. soldiers wounded in action.
So, this brings us to today with our military escalation with Iran under the Donald J. Trump Administration. Currently, we have deployed an aircraft carrier to the Arabian Sea as well as sending a Patriot missile defense system and four B-52 bombers to the region along with ordering the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad with the exception of essential personnel. According to Middle East expert Ilan Goldenberg Iran does not want a war with the United States. The question is whether we are forcing the situation, or unnecessarily exaggerating the threats from Iran. Certainly, it may depend upon how much National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo advocate for war. As Goldenberg states: “The bad news is that a war could still happen. Even if neither side wants to fight, miscalculation, missed signals, and the logic of escalation could conspire to turn even a minor clash into a regional conflagration—with devastating effects for Iran, the United States, and the Middle East.”
My worry, along with many other observers, is that such a conflict may snowball into a worse conflagration bringing in other international actors, maybe Russia. Neither the attack on these oil tankers nor the alleged shoot-down of an unmanned US drone so far has not led to any Gulf of Tonkin resolution. However, if another incident occurred causing Americans casualties and Iran was the claimed culprit, then the situation may get out of control.
For now, we can only hope from a distance that cooler heads in Washington, D.C. will prevail. We can certainly listen to diplomatic efforts of the likes of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Iran does not want war with the United States and its coalition partners. We can examine the U.S. history of interventionism and learn from our past military mistakes.
If you are concerned about this pattern of provoking war by making claims that cannot be proven, please participate in your democracy: Here is a petition against this possible war that you can sign online: https://www.change.org/p/stop-war-with-iran Write a quick note to your US Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/How_to_correspond_senators.htm Send your thoughts to your member of Congress: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
*** J. P. Linstroth, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of Marching Against Gender Practice: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland (2015).
“Iranians are dealing with the same everyday issues that we’re dealing with…They almost run into you because they are glued to their cell phones.”
Executive Director Patrick Hiller spoke with Popular Resistance recently about rising tensions between the United States and Iran. One way to start de-escalating the conflict? “Start changing the narrative by humanizing the Iranians.”
Listen to the interview by clicking the link below:
In her piece “Where are the Women? Who are the Women?”, Kelsey Coolidge offers a casual but cutting response to Trump’s US National Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security.
This June, the Trump Administration released its Women, Peace, and Security strategy. If you’re like me, you grapple with the contradiction between “grab-them-by-the-pussy” President Trump and the shining achievement of advancing a strategy to reduce conflict by engaging more women. But, in all fairness, it is significant….
Follow this link read the entire article on Inkstick, “foreign policy for the rest of us”:
Why refusing to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization keeps us out of war
By Patrick T. Hiller
961 words
A “Twitter-stamp” by Secretary of State Pompeo made it official. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is now designated as a foreign terrorist organization. “We must help the people of Iran get back their freedom” is a diplomatic tweet of an alternative reality. ISIS, Boko Haram, and Iran, all in one place.
This move is not a measured foreign policy decision that should be up for debate between more diplomacy-minded versus more hawkish policy-makers. This move is a step toward war that should be condemned by all sides. Whether we like it or not, the IRGC is much more than a branch of the Iranian armed forces. It has also been a part of the Iranian governmental, industrial, economic, and social system ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution with now potentially 11 million affiliated people.
Fact: Labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization is dangerous and leads us on a path to war.
When we allow the IRGC to be viewed as a terrorist organization, we allow for the commonly known steps of dealing with terrorists to follow: Terrorists are not within our scope of morality. We don’t negotiate with them, we fight them, we destroy them until there aren’t any left. And since 9/11, the US has been in an endless global war on terror (with changing names), fought by the US military on foreign soils.
Seriously and it bears grim repetition, the terrorist designation of the IRGC is a long step toward war with Iran.
By refusing to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization we are refusing to create an enemy image of Iranians as a whole. Holly Dagres, editor of the Atlantic Council’s IranSource blog, stated on the BBC Newshour that designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization is problematic because of the complexity of an entity with which 11 million out of 80 million people in Iran are to some extent affiliated with. Making general claims about an entity and its affiliates as a terror organization suggests that we are threatened by “the other” and allows us to easier legitimize violence against “them.” That’s the nature of dehumanization and it is one of the most common forms of propaganda before and during warfare. Combining this psychology with the politics of a global war on terror is worse than unnecessary; it is a classic lose-lose slip that will cost us all.
Targeting the Revolutionary Guard is nothing new. In October 2017, the US Treasury already sanctioned the IRGC under terrorism authority and as Barbara Slavin, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative notes, this new designation as a terror organization is gratuitous and provocative. We are in an extremely dangerous moment of the US-Iran conflict. Trump’s unwarranted pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal and the additional sanctions already increased the tensions. This step is yet another escalation moving us closer to a war that the US should not risk and that has no upside.
Critics rightfully point to the role the IRGC’s reprehensible actions at home and abroad. They are indeed involved in human rights abuses against their own people as well as supporting violent conflict abroad. Designating them as a terror organization, however, plays into their hands.
I’ve been to Iran. One thing that the highly educated Iranian people know for sure is that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, and John Bolton don’t care about their freedom or suffering. Instead, this designation will more likely lead Iranians to rally around the flag against the American government which once again has shown it cannot be trusted. As Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif told our delegation, Iran’s biggest crime in relation to the US was its decision to be independent.
It is not necessary to get fully caught up in the highly complex conflicts of the Middle East and the US role in those to advocate for a different approach with Iran. For now, one thing we can to do prevent another war is to push back against the creation of enemy images for propaganda purposes. Iranian people have every right to determine their own path. The Revolutionary Guard, for better or for worse is part of it. Iranians have national pride that goes beyond the religious regime.
Iranians generally hold complex views, unhelped by the US government telling them what to believe. Michael Axworthy, author of Revolutionary Iran, tells us that Iranians still regard the IRGC as heroes of the Iran-Iraq war and guarantors of independence, but also as repressive and corrupt. Iranians are highly educated, proud, warm, and welcoming people who are very aware of their own government’s often bad behavior. The last thing they want is the help of the US to “get back their freedom.” I know, because I just returned from Iran where I was part of a citizen peace delegation.
The actions by the Trump administration are arguably an attack on Iran’s sovereignty and independence as a nation and will be seen that way. Iranians know their history and the role of outsiders in trying to determine their path for them. The best thing Americans can do for the freedoms of Iranian people is to prevent Trump, Pompeo and Bolton from their ham-handed meddling. The latter comes with war, and I have 80 million reasons there, and 328 million reasons here, not to go to war with the Iranian people.
Patrick. T. Hiller, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Conflict Transformation scholar, professor, served on the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association (2012-2016), is a member of the Peace and Security Funders Group, and is Director of the War Prevention Initiative of the Jubitz Family Foundation.
Now comes the mid-term elections.
Perhaps what is most astonishing for me, as both an anthropologist and educator, is the level of racist discourse promoted by the current Trump administration against hapless refugees and the so-called threat they pose.
Indeed, Trump and his administration have focused on immigrants as a major threat to the security of nation. Such hyped-up racist rhetoric is completely false.
This vitriol against the caravan of Central Americans and Mexicans on their way to the US border was cruel electioneering, no more. These people are poor and are fleeing horrific violence in their home countries. Some of this violence has been caused by US policies in the region.
Nonetheless, Trump has staged the national guard at the border for photo opportunities of soldiers building coil wire fencing. Trump’s words of racist hatred have also inspired and summoned numerous paramilitary posses of armed militias to the US/Mexican borderlands.
Fear-mongering and racism against immigrants is nothing new in the history of the United States.
Toward the end of the 19th-century and at the turn of the 20th-century, many in the US promoted “Nativism”—an all-white America where good jobs belonged to Whites, not foreigners. This was the historical period known as the “Second-Industrial Revolution,” the “Gilded Age,” and the “Progressive Era”—a time of enormous economic transformation for the country through industrialization and urbanization.
Those on the West Coast blamed the loss of jobs and low wages on Chinese immigrants. This resulted in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act by the US Congress in 1882. In 1907 there was also a “Gentleman’s Agreement” with Japan to restrict Japanese emigration.
By 1924 the US Congress passed the “Immigration Act,” thereby limiting immigration from Eastern and Southern Europeans such as those with Greek, Italian, Polish, and Jewish origins and banned Asians.
During the mid-nineteenth century, a huge wave of Irish immigrants came to the US because of the “Great Famine” (1845-1849) in Ireland. These Irish worked in the worst jobs possible. They built the railroads connecting the country to the West Coast, constructed canals, and provided cheap labor for much of northern industry. In this period, the Irish were viewed as dogs, drunkards, and non-human apes, barely considered White.
Conditions in manufacturing were generally deplorable for all new immigrants in the Gilded Age. Workers were not protected and required to work 14-16 hour days, six or seven days a week, nearly 365 days a year. Children worked too and were not required to attend school. A typical unskilled laborer at the time earned no more than $8-10 per week.
Upton Sinclair’s historical novel, The Jungle (1904), illustrates these hazardous conditions for immigrants in Chicago’s meatpacking industry—lost limbs and digits, no workman’s compensation, unsanitary conditions, and dangerous work.
In the Chicago Haymarket Riot of 1886, several German immigrants were unfairly accused of instigating a protest where policemen were killed. The injustice of the following trial was so evident that the governor of Illinois commuted some of the sentences of those accused.
Fear of immigrants, even American citizen descendants of some of them, was also evident during World War II with the racialized internment of Japanese-Americans into concentration camps. Some 100,000 Japanese-Americans were imprisoned between 1942 and 1945, preventing a non-existent threat.
Mythologies persist. Immigrants are easy scapegoats and targets because they often do not have a voice to protest such falsehoods against them.
Indeed, immigrants are often the hardest working populations under the worst conditions, wanting a better life for their families. We find this in new immigrant populations coming from Mexico and Central America to the United States today. These are people who work in the fields picking our fruits and vegetables, doing domestic work and caring for our children, laboring in meatpacking plants, working in landscaping and mowing our lawns, cleaning motel rooms, and preparing our food in the restaurant industry.
I have been advocating on behalf of the Guatemalan-Maya population in South Florida since 1990. Many of these immigrants arrived here from the genocide and civil war in Guatemala in the early 1980s where the US was indirectly involved, having trained the country’s military leaders in the School of the Americas and supplying the military junta with weapons.
During the 1980s the US intervened more directly in the civil wars in Central American countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua. Such US military interventionism was “justified” as against the spread of communism, yet caused greater instability in the region.
Moreover, US economic trade policies of the 1990s such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) have consistently undermined the economic opportunities of those living in countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Employers in Central America have consistently violated minimum wage agreements and fair labor conditions.
These 5,000 people coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico pose no threat to the security of the United States. It will not be difficult to prevent them from crossing our border.
But the fake news created by the Trump administration will most likely persist in the American imagination:
• Our Pentagon says there is no threat of Middle Eastern terrorists amongst this caravan of mostly poor Central Americans.
• Nor was the Democratic Party responsible for organizing the caravan. Migrant caravans have been coming to the United States-Mexican borders for years under both Republican and Democrat administrations.
• Traveling in numbers makes the journey safer for these migrants. Often migrants are commonly victims of real threats of violence along the way—murder, rape, and robbery.
• Nor is the Honduran government financially supporting the caravan.
• And finally, these people cannot just return to their home countries and apply for political asylum there. They must be in the United States to apply for asylum and citizenship.
The situation in Central America is a humanitarian crisis on a large scale. It is a crisis largely caused by US policies in the region. We have often treated those south of the border as inferior peoples since the beginning of our imperialist aims in the Western Hemisphere with the Monroe Doctrine, then the Roosevelt Corollary, and US military interventionism over the last century throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.
Do not be fooled by Trump’s racist rhetoric. These immigrants are desperate human beings wanting survival for their families. They are not security threats. They should be protected and sheltered and given the same opportunities as our ancestors arriving at Ellis Island.
Rather, Emma Lazarus’ words (1883), should echo with everyone: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” This is the true America and the ideals we all hold dear.
***
J. P. Linstroth is a former Fulbright Scholar to Brazil. He has a PhD from the University of Oxford. He is the author of Marching Against Gender Practice (2015).
“Gangsterism” or “Progress”? Examining North Korea’s Latest Statement on Denuclearization
by Mel Gurtov
Most US news reports are suggesting that the North Koreans may be backtracking on their commitment to denuclearization, calling the US position “gangster-like” following the visit of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang. What the North Korean foreign ministry actually said in its statement of July 7 is far more nuanced, and speaks directly to the longstanding differences between Pyongyang and Washington.
Children in cages create glimmers of the moral reserve
849 Words
By Patrick T. Hiller
Are children in cages the turning point? Under huge public pressure, President Trump issued an executive order that instead of children being put in cages, they would now be locked up together with their parents. Crisis resolved, let’s not forget that they are “illegals.” As good citizens, we voice our concerns but ultimately do not question authorities on such important matters. Anyone who thinks that the latest Executive Order will end the policy of inhumanity is mistaken. We need an awakening of what Mexican historian and peace educator Pietro Ameglio calls the moral reserve. In moments of extreme inhumanity, the public needs to come up with a simple demand: stop inhumanity.
Separation of Immigrant Families Is Institutionalized Cruelty
by José-Antonio Orosco
711 words
As I listened to the recording of immigrant kids crying because they were being separated from their parents, I heard the Border Patrol agent joke that they sounded like an orchestra without a conductor. My reaction was to wonder how anyone could be so cruel to the fear of young children. What could make a person so cold to that kind of pain?
08
JulWar Prevention Initiative Op-Ed addressing German audience: Stand up against U.S. drive toward war with Iran.
diplomacy European Union foreign policy Germany Iran
In his recent commentary published by the German Rubikon magazine, War Prevention Initiative Executive Director Patrick Hiller argues that Germany and other European nations need to behave independently at the threshold of war, be courageous and assume a moral leadership beyond Iran, embracing global stability and security. There must be no “coalition of the willing” but the designation of the US as a pariah when it comes to international peace and international stability. You can read the German commentary here:
https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/die-letzte-bastion
03
JulProvoking World War III with Iran and a U.S. history of provocation
Published on Monday, July 01, 2019 by PeaceVoice
Provoking World War III with Iran and a U.S. history of provocation
by J.P. Linstroth
1220 words
In the history of the United States and its history of interventionism, the recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman seem to be foreboding and ominous signs of what may come—an inevitable war with the Islamic Republic of Iran? To many who are watching the region closely, it is still unclear if Iran is behind such attacks. Moreover, and, thankfully, President Donald J. Trump backed away from bombing Iran after the Iranians allegedly and recently shot down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz.
Even so, the bellicose rhetoric between President Trump (threatening Iran’s “obliteration”) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (calling Trump “mentally retarded”) have continued. Watching from the sidelines, everyone hopes diplomacy will prevail.
Let us examine U.S. interventionism past more closely. I know of four clear international instances where the United States intervened under dubious circumstances, initiating war.
The first happened just before the beginning of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). President James K. Polk sent American troops to the Rio Grande River under the command of Zachary Taylor. The Mexicans had believed that the border had been at the Nueces River, not the Rio Grande, the Nueces being significantly north of the Rio Grande. This move was provocative and incited Mexican forces to attack the U.S. Army at its fortifications on the Rio Grande in 1846. As the attacks on U.S. soldiers were reported by Taylor to Polk, the U.S. Congress promptly declared war on Mexico.
Yet, in understanding these incidents, we have to likewise understand the motivations of the historical actors. Polk strongly believed in the Manifest Destiny of the United States to conquer the territories west of the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Indeed, Polk initially sent U.S. Congressman John Slidell as U.S. envoy to Mexico to negotiate buying the territories of California and New Mexico from Mexico for about $30 million. (The California and New Mexico territories included present-day California and New Mexico plus Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Colorado.) But Mexican legislators balked at the offer and Mexican newspapers printed the offer as an insult to Mexican pride. The rejected buy simply became war of territorial conquest.
At the end of the 19th century was the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the United States made its debut as an imperialistic world power, seeking its own colonies despite rejecting empire with the American Revolution. Congress declared war on Spain after the U.S.S. Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor. With no evidence, the U.S. blamed Spain and the war was on—not just for Cuba, but for other Spanish colonies, and the U.S. thus acquired Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico.
However, in all likelihood, the ship exploded because of an accident, possibly, a spark from the furnace setting off munitions nearby. Or, a mine in Havana Harbor planted by Cuban rebels detonated the hull of the vessel. In total, 261 sailors lost their lives from the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine. Yet, the causes of the war had more to do with the sensationalism of newspapers at the time owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, called “Yellow Journalism”—what we call today, “fake news.” Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers were publishing stories about Spanish atrocities in Cuba. Moreover, there was the supposed “de Lôme letter” allegedly a critical letter of President William McKinley, written by the Spanish Foreign Minister Enrique Dupuy de Lôme. All of these events “justified” war with Spain.
There was also the “Gulf of Tonkin incident” which began and escalated the Vietnam War under President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. The incident was allegedly a series of attacks by Northern Vietnamese naval torpedo vessels on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, especially involving a destroyer, the U.S.S. Maddox. These skirmishes were said to have occurred on August 2 and August 4, 1964, with the second clash now believed to be entirely imaginary. The falsity of the Gulf of Tonkin incidents was allegedly substantiated by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the former Vietnam People’s Army General Võ Nguyên Giáp. The Gulf of Tonkin skirmishes with the U.S. Navy and the Northern Vietnamese Navy led to the U.S. Congress passing the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.” It gave President Johnson: “…all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”
And lastly, there is the Iraq War (2003-2011). The United States invaded Iraq on the false pretext that Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, was actively developing a program for obtaining alleged WMDs. The United Nations Security Council had earlier passed two resolutions (678 and 687) which allowed the United States to force Iraq into complying with its international agreements, concerning biochemical and nuclear disarmament; both the UN head of inspections and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iraq had no more weapons of mass destruction, yet the U.S. invaded. What is more, the intelligence community tried linking the Hussein government with Al-Qaeda, patently false. As a result of the George W. Bush Administration’s War in Iraq, there were nearly 4,500 U.S. soldier deaths and almost 32,000 U.S. soldiers wounded in action.
So, this brings us to today with our military escalation with Iran under the Donald J. Trump Administration. Currently, we have deployed an aircraft carrier to the Arabian Sea as well as sending a Patriot missile defense system and four B-52 bombers to the region along with ordering the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad with the exception of essential personnel. According to Middle East expert Ilan Goldenberg Iran does not want a war with the United States. The question is whether we are forcing the situation, or unnecessarily exaggerating the threats from Iran. Certainly, it may depend upon how much National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo advocate for war. As Goldenberg states: “The bad news is that a war could still happen. Even if neither side wants to fight, miscalculation, missed signals, and the logic of escalation could conspire to turn even a minor clash into a regional conflagration—with devastating effects for Iran, the United States, and the Middle East.”
My worry, along with many other observers, is that such a conflict may snowball into a worse conflagration bringing in other international actors, maybe Russia. Neither the attack on these oil tankers nor the alleged shoot-down of an unmanned US drone so far has not led to any Gulf of Tonkin resolution. However, if another incident occurred causing Americans casualties and Iran was the claimed culprit, then the situation may get out of control.
For now, we can only hope from a distance that cooler heads in Washington, D.C. will prevail. We can certainly listen to diplomatic efforts of the likes of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Iran does not want war with the United States and its coalition partners. We can examine the U.S. history of interventionism and learn from our past military mistakes.
If you are concerned about this pattern of provoking war by making claims that cannot be proven, please participate in your democracy:
Here is a petition against this possible war that you can sign online: https://www.change.org/p/stop-war-with-iran
Write a quick note to your US Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/How_to_correspond_senators.htm
Send your thoughts to your member of Congress: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
***
J. P. Linstroth, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of Marching Against Gender Practice: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland (2015).
01
Jul“Iranians are not our enemies”
foreign policy Humanization Iran war prevention
Follow the link bellow to read the entire commentary by War Prevention Initiative Executive Director Patrick Hiller on Foreign Policy in Focus:
25
JunRadio Interview: “How to move away from the brink of war with Iran
“Iranians are dealing with the same everyday issues that we’re dealing with…They almost run into you because they are glued to their cell phones.”
Executive Director Patrick Hiller spoke with Popular Resistance recently about rising tensions between the United States and Iran. One way to start de-escalating the conflict? “Start changing the narrative by humanizing the Iranians.”
Listen to the interview by clicking the link below:
https://popularresistance.org/how-to-move-away-from-the-brink-of-war-with-iran/
24
JunArticle by WPI Program Manager Kelsey Coolidge published on Inkstick
peace security women
In her piece “Where are the Women? Who are the Women?”, Kelsey Coolidge offers a casual but cutting response to Trump’s US National Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security.
Follow this link read the entire article on Inkstick, “foreign policy for the rest of us”:
https://inkstickmedia.com/where-are-the-women-who-are-the-women/
11
AprWhy refusing to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization keeps us out of war
diplomacy Humanization Iran JCPOA Terrorism
Why refusing to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization keeps us out of war
By Patrick T. Hiller
961 words
A “Twitter-stamp” by Secretary of State Pompeo made it official. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is now designated as a foreign terrorist organization. “We must help the people of Iran get back their freedom” is a diplomatic tweet of an alternative reality. ISIS, Boko Haram, and Iran, all in one place.
This move is not a measured foreign policy decision that should be up for debate between more diplomacy-minded versus more hawkish policy-makers. This move is a step toward war that should be condemned by all sides. Whether we like it or not, the IRGC is much more than a branch of the Iranian armed forces. It has also been a part of the Iranian governmental, industrial, economic, and social system ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution with now potentially 11 million affiliated people.
Fact: Labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization is dangerous and leads us on a path to war.
When we allow the IRGC to be viewed as a terrorist organization, we allow for the commonly known steps of dealing with terrorists to follow: Terrorists are not within our scope of morality. We don’t negotiate with them, we fight them, we destroy them until there aren’t any left. And since 9/11, the US has been in an endless global war on terror (with changing names), fought by the US military on foreign soils.
Seriously and it bears grim repetition, the terrorist designation of the IRGC is a long step toward war with Iran.
By refusing to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization we are refusing to create an enemy image of Iranians as a whole. Holly Dagres, editor of the Atlantic Council’s IranSource blog, stated on the BBC Newshour that designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization is problematic because of the complexity of an entity with which 11 million out of 80 million people in Iran are to some extent affiliated with. Making general claims about an entity and its affiliates as a terror organization suggests that we are threatened by “the other” and allows us to easier legitimize violence against “them.” That’s the nature of dehumanization and it is one of the most common forms of propaganda before and during warfare. Combining this psychology with the politics of a global war on terror is worse than unnecessary; it is a classic lose-lose slip that will cost us all.
Targeting the Revolutionary Guard is nothing new. In October 2017, the US Treasury already sanctioned the IRGC under terrorism authority and as Barbara Slavin, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative notes, this new designation as a terror organization is gratuitous and provocative. We are in an extremely dangerous moment of the US-Iran conflict. Trump’s unwarranted pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal and the additional sanctions already increased the tensions. This step is yet another escalation moving us closer to a war that the US should not risk and that has no upside.
Critics rightfully point to the role the IRGC’s reprehensible actions at home and abroad. They are indeed involved in human rights abuses against their own people as well as supporting violent conflict abroad. Designating them as a terror organization, however, plays into their hands.
I’ve been to Iran. One thing that the highly educated Iranian people know for sure is that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, and John Bolton don’t care about their freedom or suffering. Instead, this designation will more likely lead Iranians to rally around the flag against the American government which once again has shown it cannot be trusted. As Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif told our delegation, Iran’s biggest crime in relation to the US was its decision to be independent.
It is not necessary to get fully caught up in the highly complex conflicts of the Middle East and the US role in those to advocate for a different approach with Iran. For now, one thing we can to do prevent another war is to push back against the creation of enemy images for propaganda purposes. Iranian people have every right to determine their own path. The Revolutionary Guard, for better or for worse is part of it. Iranians have national pride that goes beyond the religious regime.
Iranians generally hold complex views, unhelped by the US government telling them what to believe. Michael Axworthy, author of Revolutionary Iran, tells us that Iranians still regard the IRGC as heroes of the Iran-Iraq war and guarantors of independence, but also as repressive and corrupt. Iranians are highly educated, proud, warm, and welcoming people who are very aware of their own government’s often bad behavior. The last thing they want is the help of the US to “get back their freedom.” I know, because I just returned from Iran where I was part of a citizen peace delegation.
The actions by the Trump administration are arguably an attack on Iran’s sovereignty and independence as a nation and will be seen that way. Iranians know their history and the role of outsiders in trying to determine their path for them. The best thing Americans can do for the freedoms of Iranian people is to prevent Trump, Pompeo and Bolton from their ham-handed meddling. The latter comes with war, and I have 80 million reasons there, and 328 million reasons here, not to go to war with the Iranian people.
Patrick. T. Hiller, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Conflict Transformation scholar, professor, served on the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association (2012-2016), is a member of the Peace and Security Funders Group, and is Director of the War Prevention Initiative of the Jubitz Family Foundation.
09
NovMyths on Race and Invasion of the ‘Caravan Horde’
asylum immigration migration nativism
Myths on Race and Invasion of the ‘Caravan Horde’
By J.P. Linstroth
Now comes the mid-term elections.
Perhaps what is most astonishing for me, as both an anthropologist and educator, is the level of racist discourse promoted by the current Trump administration against hapless refugees and the so-called threat they pose.
Indeed, Trump and his administration have focused on immigrants as a major threat to the security of nation. Such hyped-up racist rhetoric is completely false.
This vitriol against the caravan of Central Americans and Mexicans on their way to the US border was cruel electioneering, no more. These people are poor and are fleeing horrific violence in their home countries. Some of this violence has been caused by US policies in the region.
Nonetheless, Trump has staged the national guard at the border for photo opportunities of soldiers building coil wire fencing. Trump’s words of racist hatred have also inspired and summoned numerous paramilitary posses of armed militias to the US/Mexican borderlands.
Fear-mongering and racism against immigrants is nothing new in the history of the United States.
Toward the end of the 19th-century and at the turn of the 20th-century, many in the US promoted “Nativism”—an all-white America where good jobs belonged to Whites, not foreigners. This was the historical period known as the “Second-Industrial Revolution,” the “Gilded Age,” and the “Progressive Era”—a time of enormous economic transformation for the country through industrialization and urbanization.
Those on the West Coast blamed the loss of jobs and low wages on Chinese immigrants. This resulted in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act by the US Congress in 1882. In 1907 there was also a “Gentleman’s Agreement” with Japan to restrict Japanese emigration.
By 1924 the US Congress passed the “Immigration Act,” thereby limiting immigration from Eastern and Southern Europeans such as those with Greek, Italian, Polish, and Jewish origins and banned Asians.
During the mid-nineteenth century, a huge wave of Irish immigrants came to the US because of the “Great Famine” (1845-1849) in Ireland. These Irish worked in the worst jobs possible. They built the railroads connecting the country to the West Coast, constructed canals, and provided cheap labor for much of northern industry. In this period, the Irish were viewed as dogs, drunkards, and non-human apes, barely considered White.
Conditions in manufacturing were generally deplorable for all new immigrants in the Gilded Age. Workers were not protected and required to work 14-16 hour days, six or seven days a week, nearly 365 days a year. Children worked too and were not required to attend school. A typical unskilled laborer at the time earned no more than $8-10 per week.
Upton Sinclair’s historical novel, The Jungle (1904), illustrates these hazardous conditions for immigrants in Chicago’s meatpacking industry—lost limbs and digits, no workman’s compensation, unsanitary conditions, and dangerous work.
In the Chicago Haymarket Riot of 1886, several German immigrants were unfairly accused of instigating a protest where policemen were killed. The injustice of the following trial was so evident that the governor of Illinois commuted some of the sentences of those accused.
Fear of immigrants, even American citizen descendants of some of them, was also evident during World War II with the racialized internment of Japanese-Americans into concentration camps. Some 100,000 Japanese-Americans were imprisoned between 1942 and 1945, preventing a non-existent threat.
Mythologies persist. Immigrants are easy scapegoats and targets because they often do not have a voice to protest such falsehoods against them.
Indeed, immigrants are often the hardest working populations under the worst conditions, wanting a better life for their families. We find this in new immigrant populations coming from Mexico and Central America to the United States today. These are people who work in the fields picking our fruits and vegetables, doing domestic work and caring for our children, laboring in meatpacking plants, working in landscaping and mowing our lawns, cleaning motel rooms, and preparing our food in the restaurant industry.
I have been advocating on behalf of the Guatemalan-Maya population in South Florida since 1990. Many of these immigrants arrived here from the genocide and civil war in Guatemala in the early 1980s where the US was indirectly involved, having trained the country’s military leaders in the School of the Americas and supplying the military junta with weapons.
During the 1980s the US intervened more directly in the civil wars in Central American countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua. Such US military interventionism was “justified” as against the spread of communism, yet caused greater instability in the region.
Moreover, US economic trade policies of the 1990s such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) have consistently undermined the economic opportunities of those living in countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Employers in Central America have consistently violated minimum wage agreements and fair labor conditions.
These 5,000 people coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico pose no threat to the security of the United States. It will not be difficult to prevent them from crossing our border.
But the fake news created by the Trump administration will most likely persist in the American imagination:
• Our Pentagon says there is no threat of Middle Eastern terrorists amongst this caravan of mostly poor Central Americans.
• Nor was the Democratic Party responsible for organizing the caravan. Migrant caravans have been coming to the United States-Mexican borders for years under both Republican and Democrat administrations.
• Traveling in numbers makes the journey safer for these migrants. Often migrants are commonly victims of real threats of violence along the way—murder, rape, and robbery.
• Nor is the Honduran government financially supporting the caravan.
• And finally, these people cannot just return to their home countries and apply for political asylum there. They must be in the United States to apply for asylum and citizenship.
The situation in Central America is a humanitarian crisis on a large scale. It is a crisis largely caused by US policies in the region. We have often treated those south of the border as inferior peoples since the beginning of our imperialist aims in the Western Hemisphere with the Monroe Doctrine, then the Roosevelt Corollary, and US military interventionism over the last century throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.
Do not be fooled by Trump’s racist rhetoric. These immigrants are desperate human beings wanting survival for their families. They are not security threats. They should be protected and sheltered and given the same opportunities as our ancestors arriving at Ellis Island.
Rather, Emma Lazarus’ words (1883), should echo with everyone: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” This is the true America and the ideals we all hold dear.
***
J. P. Linstroth is a former Fulbright Scholar to Brazil. He has a PhD from the University of Oxford. He is the author of Marching Against Gender Practice (2015).
09
Jul“Gangsterism” or “Progress”? Examining North Korea’s Latest Statement on Denuclearization
denuclearization North Korea
“Gangsterism” or “Progress”? Examining North Korea’s Latest Statement on Denuclearization
by Mel Gurtov
Most US news reports are suggesting that the North Koreans may be backtracking on their commitment to denuclearization, calling the US position “gangster-like” following the visit of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang. What the North Korean foreign ministry actually said in its statement of July 7 is far more nuanced, and speaks directly to the longstanding differences between Pyongyang and Washington.
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28
JunChildren in cages create glimmers of the moral reserve
immigration moral awakening refugees
Children in cages create glimmers of the moral reserve
849 Words
By Patrick T. Hiller
Are children in cages the turning point? Under huge public pressure, President Trump issued an executive order that instead of children being put in cages, they would now be locked up together with their parents. Crisis resolved, let’s not forget that they are “illegals.” As good citizens, we voice our concerns but ultimately do not question authorities on such important matters. Anyone who thinks that the latest Executive Order will end the policy of inhumanity is mistaken. We need an awakening of what Mexican historian and peace educator Pietro Ameglio calls the moral reserve. In moments of extreme inhumanity, the public needs to come up with a simple demand: stop inhumanity.
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20
JunSeparation of Immigrant Families Is Institutionalized Cruelty
children detention immigration
Separation of Immigrant Families Is Institutionalized Cruelty
by José-Antonio Orosco
711 words
As I listened to the recording of immigrant kids crying because they were being separated from their parents, I heard the Border Patrol agent joke that they sounded like an orchestra without a conductor. My reaction was to wonder how anyone could be so cruel to the fear of young children. What could make a person so cold to that kind of pain?
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